CrispNG’s maiden lecture: How to solve Nigeria’s trust problem — Solomon Dalung
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Former Minister of Youth and Sports, Barr. Solomon Dalung, has urged the government to invest in youths to build trust in the system and in the Nigerian dream.
Speaking at Crisp Nigeria’s maiden annual lecture on Saturday, April 17, 2024, Dalung emphasized the need for youth involvement in shaping Nigeria’s future. He delivered a talk titled “Nigeria of Our Dreams: Rebuilding the Trust of Youth in the Nigerian Project.”
The lecture, themed “Nigeria of Our Dreams: Are the Youths Involved?”, was organised to celebrate International Youth Day.
Other notable speakers included Aisha Wakaso, Niger State Governor’s aide; Prof. Luke Anorue, former Head of Mass Communication at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka; Dr. Ambrose Igboke, political analyst; Halima Layeni, founder of Life After Abuse Foundation; and Busaosowo Bisong, founder of Busaosowo Foundation.
The issues
“Rebuilding is a key component of the Nigerian dream. I think the organizers carefully chose the word ‘rebuilding,’ meaning that trust, as a critical phenomenon of leadership, has collapsed, and so there is a need to embark on a search to replace and position trust, so that the dream of our Nigerian will be achieved.
Trust basically refers to faith, belief, and hope in a particular phenomenon. Trust is the key component of every leadership at every strata. Once trust deficit exists, then the future becomes very bleak, because there is now no social question in terms of the people and leadership, so there will also be no common or articulated agenda that will be accepted as a basis of progress. So truth is critical and cannot be overemphasized as needed for nation-building, at the existence of a society, businesses, relationships, and everything.
How my trust in government was built
Growing up as a young man, the country invested very much in building hope and trust in me. During primary school, we were enticed with Crystal milk so that we could attend school, because, to the local community then, Western education was perceived as an abnormality.
Just like Adam Smith said that it is not out of the benevolence of a butcher that we have our meat to eat, but in search of his interest to maximize profit, he ends up servicing the needs of the society. So, we ended up building trust in the system that initially lured us into it.
At the primary level, everything was made available to us. There were instructional materials and very good teachers. I studied the history of ‘Master Mosah’ in primary three. Today, it is a syllabus of the universities. I knew how to read and write in primary three, in a public school, in a rural area in Plateau, Sabongida, where I was born. So, having this investment in me, built trust in the leadership that was doing this.
The peak of it was when I went to secondary school. I was one of the best graduating pupils in my primary school, so I had that opportunity of going to the best school. I was offered admission first to go to Federal Government College, Owerri, but it was turned down by my parents because of the fear that I might not find my way or I might not return. And so the government again offered me admission to go to a unitary school, Government College, Keffi, and my classmates were drawn from the Federation, Nigeria, because each state of the Federation contributed to what made up my class.
Now, when I arrived at the secondary school, all my parents did was buy me a towel and a box. I went to the school and reported. Upon presenting my admission letter, everything was provided for me, including school uniforms, notebooks, biros, cutlass and a hoe. Every time my biro ink ran out, I only needed to inform my teacher, who would provide a replacement. This investment actually contributed to shaping the mindset and confidence I have in the country, and I believe in that country.
But along the line, these things disappeared, and when I was a minister, I went to a secondary school in my locality. And I couldn’t control tears running down my eyes because, in primary six, I saw pupils sitting down on the ground, and a teacher was jumping over them to access the board in order to write. And I remembered what I went through during my primary school days, and what I was seeing, and I couldn’t control tears. Because it was a monumental failure. How do you reconcile those people sitting on the ground with the concept of a nation? What has the nation done for them to make them believe or trust anybody?
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Youths not being prioritised is the problem
The inability to prioritise youth development, as it were when we were growing up, investing in the youths, giving them the opportunity to showcase their potentials and be corrected and guided to be leaders, is one of the major challenges that we are dealing with today, and that is one of the greatest obstacles against the concept ‘Nigeria of our dream’.
Therefore, these failures to develop the youths, to prioritise youths investment as potential assets for the future, rather, we decided to now personalize the concept of leadership, and everything has been so personalized, that every well-established person is a government of his own, because he provides water, his source of energy, he sends his children to the best schools, not even in Nigeria. Therefore, there is nothing bringing us together or uniting even the young people.
Therefore, when you gather and assemble them, you only find the investment we had in them, which is either stereotype, hate, division, religious bigotry, ethnic tribalism. These are the current investments in young people, so when you assemble them and ask them to begin to speak about the country, you will understand the perspectives and the background from which they are coming.
How to solve the “trust” problem
To solve this problem, leadership is very critical.
The founding fathers of Nigeria, such as Sir Ahmadu Bello, Awolowo, Nnamdi Azikiwe, Michael Okpara, and Osadebe, recognised the significance of youths as the building bricks of the nation. Therefore, they invested heavily in addressing some of the primordial challenges that could frustrate social mobility. For instance, they introduced free education in some places, making it accessible to children from poor backgrounds.
Additionally, interventions like scholarships were implemented. In the early days of modern Nigeria, scholarships were awarded to students after primary school to pursue their first degree, master’s, and PhD. These scholarships covered all expenses, including transportation from the airport to the dormitory, and were paid in full from the day they were awarded. These investments built trust and demonstrated the value placed on youth development.
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The youths have become wheelbarrows
Now that we have missed our steps, leadership has become an issue. It has become so personalized, and the youths are now dispersed like sheep without a shepherd. They have come to hate even the name Nigeria because they have lost hope.
Year in, year out, the youths are only used as tools for elections; whether thuggery, helping to win genuinely, or subverting the Supreme rule of the people that have persistently been their roles, which I refer to as the wheelbarrow syndrome.
The wheelbarrow is a very important tool, but it has no garage; it is kept under the rain and sun. It can only be used when it is needed, and that has been the position of the youth. So, if we must rebuild their trust, leadership in Nigeria must be very deliberate.
Solving the issue of a wasted generation
There is already a wasted generation. There are over four to six generations from youths now that are frustrated. There must be a deliberate policy of dealing with them, how to rehabilitate them, how to reposition them, get them involved in their various talents and interests.
This can be done using technology because today, the digital economy is an all-comer affair. And therefore, those of them who are talented could be deliberately engaged in that, so that they can be rehabilitated.
You have to deal with that generation first. Some of them are in their forties; some are forty-five, marriages are not even a concept on their list, some can’t even afford a trouser of their own, so they are still dependent.
While dealing with that generation, there must also be a deliberate policy now to draw a curtain on the young ones that are coming up, and they will now be recruited into another policy of a dream of a great Nigeria. Where confidence would be instilled in them, having compensated the generation that has suffered, and by virtue of rehabilitating them, you are also rebuilding their hope in the country, and they have contributions now to make.
So the new generation now will be mentored because they will also be confident, having seen what has been done to the preceding generation, they become confident in the country, and will begin to bring in their best.
Tackling corruption and other ills
Now, this will become a relay race if we don’t tackle some of the challenges that are responsible, and corruption is the headmaster, as far as the Nigerian state is concerned, injustice is the principal of a school in Nigeria.
We must tackle corruption headlong. The issue of injustice has to be resolved. The Nigerian state has to be very fair to every citizen.
Every citizen must be given access to everything depending on what the law provides for him or her. This, in my own opinion, will help to heal the wounds of this frustrated generation of young people who now are hungry, angry, frustrated, and hopeless.
However, if nothing is done soon, we are all living on a time bomb. When it would explode, survivors will only be those who would have been designated by nature and God to survive. So it’s a very serious and critical issue. And I think discussions like this conversation and spaces like this will be of very great help to try to position the country.
I want to assure the young people that there is hope. If we have failed them, they should not fail themselves, and they should not fail the younger generation. They have to do something.
I have appealed to my generation, and I’ve developed a theory that anybody who is sixty-five years should please forget about holding any executive office because he has a natural job of an advisor. Let’s give way to the young people. If they are going to auction Nigeria, let them get an auctioneer, hit the bell, and their gather sell Nigeria and share the money, then they will stand on our graves to say we are grateful to our parents; they gave us the opportunity to sell this country, and we have taken our share. If not, give them the chance to build a country of their dream.
Questions
Ogbonnaya: Why is the government of today finding it difficult to maintain the standard set by their predecessors?
Solomon Dalung: When I became an administrator in 2015, the National Youth Policy had not been reviewed for five years. I initiated a review, and the current age definition of a youth in Nigeria, according to the national policy, is 15 to 29. This aligns with global best practices. Previously, the age range was 18 to 35, which was merely theoretical. I knew that in this country, a 62-year-old could be a youth leader of a political party, while I, at 40, needed 22 more years to be considered a youth. We reviewed the policy, and now a youth is defined as someone between 15 and 29 years old in Nigeria.
But why has it been difficult for this generation to provide to the youths what they enjoyed when they were young? I say it is greed and selfishness.
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Speakers talk about the inability of youths to access power and political participation, forgetting that in the First Republic, people like Awolowo, Tafawa Balewa, and Azikiwe would have been disqualified from participation if the current political system were in place. But back then, it was about mobilizing people and winning elections.
Now, we have registration of political parties and requirements like the ‘Not Too Young to Run’ bill, which I initiated as Minister of Youth and Sports. However, this bill was mere ceremony and didn’t address the economic capacity of youths to contest elections.
The political elites blackmail the youths, appointing their own ‘youths’ who fail and then say, ‘You see, we gave the youth an opportunity, and they failed.’ But were these ‘youths’ chosen by the youths themselves? No! So, the older generation uses this to blackmail the youths, saying, ‘We gave you an opportunity, and you failed.’
The role of youths in the just concluded #Endbadgovernance protests, despite attempts to frustrate them, shows that they are becoming more resilient and won’t take this for long.
To succeed, youths must defeat frustration, which is a tool used by political elites to keep them depressed and politically inactive. Youths need to organize themselves, identify older sympathizers, and understand certain basics to conquer this war.
It’s mere greed and selfishness that has driven political elites to buy houses in London and send their children to schools abroad while Nigerian schools are not functional.
As someone who suffered educational injustice, spending 11 years reading law instead of five due to industrial action, I understand the struggle. Most ladies in my generation are unmarried due to this. We cannot allow the younger generation to suffer the same fate. If our ideas have failed and greed has conquered our conscience, it’s better to let them build a nation of their dreams. Simply put, greed and selfishness are the main cancers.
Hamzat Abaga: Looking at the resources provided in the past and what the youth are going through now, is it right to say enough is enough and is protest the right approach?
Sections 39, 40, and 41 of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, as amended, grant citizens the right to associate, assemble, and express themselves. The combined effects of these sections authoritatively invest citizens with the right to hold opinions, express, assemble, gather, and promote. Therefore, a protest is a legitimate cause recognized by the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.
Furthermore, Section 83 of the Police Act empowers the police to provide security to citizens who legitimately assemble and express their grievances against individuals, private persons, or the state through protests. In accordance with our laws, protest is legitimate.
However, whether it is the right way to go depends on the magnitude of the challenge on the ground. If all channels of communication have failed to yield the desired results, young people may be left with no other option but to exercise their constitutional right to express themselves
The international standard for budgeting for education is 26% of a country’s budget. But if you review our budget for education, sometimes it’s 8%, 5%, 2%, and even 1%. So, we have a long way to go in terms of funding, which is why our educational system is suffering.
When I was the Minister of Youths, there were many challenges I faced. I thought maybe it was because of the type of person I am and the principles I stand for.
I have been a youth activist since my early days. Back then, the National Youth Movement set up by Herbert Macaulay metamorphosed into what is known today as the National Youth Council. The National Youth Council was more or less a leadership training ground for young people. You learned many things about how to administer yourself as youths and grew into it, eventually transitioning into the political space. So, when you were certified, you were pulled out. I was a youth activist until I was 35, and I was pulled out the way military generals are pulled out.
I became a veteran and remained a youth veteran until my age began to remind me that if I stayed too long, I would not be adding value . So, I withdrew to a point where I could watch the dancers’ steps and listen to the music, so I could guide others.
The youth movement was very, very fantastic; it was the voice of the youths. We resisted all policies of the military government that were anti-youths and fought against all government policies that were anti-people.
However, 1999 became an albatross for youth development because the politicians who came in 1999 inherited some of the draconian attitudes of military leaders who were clamping down on youth leaders, detaining some of us, and taking us to prison left, right, and center. They gave us many names because they weren’t sure what they were doing could secure our future. In 1999, the politicians leveraged the ample rights provided in the Constitution to annex the youth movement as part and parcel of their political agendas.
So today, instead of NANS speaking for the youths and the Nigerian people, all it takes is for the president to invite them to Asokoro or Maitama, and they will come out and issue a statement against even their generation, saying, “The National Association of Nigerian Students is against those students who are expressing discontent. We are satisfied.”
The National Youth Council’s leadership is now determined by the whims of the minister, government officials, or politicians. During NANS elections, the amount of money involved is embarrassing.
Some of us are even regretting our past sacrifices—why did we suffer, go to prison, and face beatings and humiliation as student leaders? Abacha gave us 30 million, brought us to Aso Rock as students, and offered us 30 million to support military policies, but we told him we were grateful and that he could use that money to do something for the country. We turned down his request. But today, these platforms, which could have been used by Nigerian youths to express themselves, have been taken over by politicians and are now mere trumpets of the political elite, used against youths. As a result, all resources meant for youth development are cornered, and the National Youth Council and Nigerian students cannot challenge this.
Why are Nigerian students comfortable with student loans instead of student grants, especially when most of us experienced an era of free education, where the government provided everything?
Back then, when you graduate from university as a student, there was a car loan waiting for you, and you could choose your job. So why are they not asking for grants instead of celebrating student loans?
I think the youths are struggling to gain access to political power. They should repossess their inheritance—these structures that evolved from pre-colonial times to what they are today in Nigeria—because the National Youth Council originated from the National Youth Movement of Ernest Ekwelie and Herbert Macaulay. It exists today to serve the purpose of youth struggle.
So, I advise that the youths should also demand adequate funding for investment in youth development and education. If it entails taking to the streets, they should mobilize and do so, if they are not being listened to. There’s nothing wrong with that.
UCJ-UNN: How can budding journalists participate in this nation building?
Solomon Dalung: The youths, as digital natives, have ample access to and opportunities in the new media. The new media is a very good platform for mobilization and aggregating opinions of the youths, as well as influencing the population to begin thinking towards the young generation.
Youths all over the world have used new media in many places to effect changes. The Arab Spring was driven by new media, and of course, digital natives were the drivers of the changes that spread across several countries.
I think the conventional media will not offer the same opportunities to the youths, so they should use platforms on the new media to mobilize themselves, aggregate opinions, make demands, and push forward.
They should also identify members of our generation who share their predicament to participate in the push for youth access to power.
Nelson Mandela, when he was released from prison, initially refused to even participate in elections. He had been away for 27 years; most of us were either not born or very young when he was imprisoned. He insisted on forming a political party to take over. We needed him around to build a solid foundation for us, and as a nation, he spent five years leading and laying the foundation of a rainbow nation. He then handed over to young people in South Africa, and South Africa is moving forward. So sometimes, you need to gather these theories from around the world, aggregate them, and choose those you think you can recruit into your movement, and then begin to push forward.
Final submission
Support for the establishment of Men’s Ministry
Esther Vilar is not a feminist, but I think she is an advocate for men’s freedom. She published her first book in 1971 called The Manipulated Man. She’s German and still living, but her last interview indicated that she is still facing threats from women.
Listening to Halima, speaking objectively on an issue that has been swept under the carpet, I was moved. the male gender is blackmailed at every turn of events just because of some assumptions.
I have a neighbor here in Abuja who is an orphan, now in his late 70s. He used all his money to train his children and support his family. They are well established, and his wife is now traveling, going on omugwo from Amsterdam to China to America, visiting their children.
Meanwhile, the man is left here in Abuja; he doesn’t have money anymore because everything he worked for in his life, he invested in the family. Each time his wife returns, she comes back with a Bible and wine as gifts for him. That is the average situation of a Nigerian man, yet allegations of failure are constantly lumped on us as being responsible.
The idea of a Ministry of Men Affairs, is pleasing to me, and I have been an advocate for it. We need a Ministry of Men Affairs because there’s no ministry exclusively for men. Just because a man is the President of Nigeria doesn’t mean he is the representative of the male gender; he is just a male, just like you have women in positions. I think justice demands that we should give more attention to our men.
Men do not live as long. If you go to the church, you’ll see a committee of widows, but you won’t find a committee of widowers. Most men are gone between 50 to 60 years, and nobody is concerned about them, and Esther Vilar captured this very well in her book.
Last words
To the young people in Nigeria, I think my last words would be that there are quite a number of our generation that believe in you. All you need to do is reorganize yourselves, come together, and begin to ask reasonable questions to gain access to power and leadership.
From our standpoint, we are also fighting for young people to be allowed to participate in governance so that we can retire and advise you. Since our own dreams cannot materialize, we should not frustrate your dreams.
I want to discourage every young person who has the instinct to japa. I have traveled to over 70 countries around the world and discovered that there is nowhere I can live as comfortably as in Nigeria. There is no place better than Nigeria, and Nigeria can work. So let’s change our frustration into positivity and begin to see how we can make this country better for all of us. I am anti-japa. Nobody should go anywhere; this is our country. Nobody is more Nigerian than anybody else. We’re all Nigerians, and I encourage you to stay, fight for your country, and if you invite us, we’ll come with our own “machine guns” and join you. All of us will fight to have a better country. We are not against anybody; we just want a better country. That’s the message—if Nigeria works, there will be no quarrelling.
